JOHANN MICHAEL NICOLAI

'Sonata a tre viol da gamba'

Ciaconia

Sacred songs from Protestant Germany of the late 16th and early 17th century

In Lutheran music the viol became particularly associated with the affect of lamento. This finds its roots in the string accompaniments to Italian operatic laments—a genre which had become much in vogue after Monteverdi’s second opera Arianna.

On this disc of music from Protestant Germany Charivari Agréable is joined by the distinguished tenor, Rodrigo del Pozo

"There is a saying that one can be happy in one’s misery. I was certainly thrilled to wallow in the mournful music presented in this disc. These works are mainly by German composers of the generation between Schütz and J.S.Bach, and they both exhibit the influence of the earlier master and foreshadow the style of the later one. The Chilean-born tenor Rodrigo del Pozo’s singing is simply gorgeous, with an emotional fervour and luminosity of tone highly reminiscent of the counter-tenor René Jacobs. The ensemble Charivari Agréable Simfonie, produce a deeply sonorous timbre superior to the thin sound of many other early music groups, and their elegant phrasing makes their instruments sing. The highlight of the disc is J.C.Bach’s spectacular Ach, dass ich Wassers g’nug hätte (’Oh, that I had tears enough!"), whose dramatic intensity and surprising turns of phrase are well matched by the dynamic control and timing of del Pozo and the ensemble. The material on this disc might appeal more to the connoisseur than the general music-lover. Nonetheless, this is a recording of the highest calibre and, in spite of its title, delivers exquisite pleasure."

Tristan Jones

Cathedral Music - Autumn 2000

"Chilean-born tenor Rodrigo del Pozo has chosen a selection mainly of mid-Baroque German sacred songs for his programme. These are interspersed with instrumental pieces for varying combinations of strings (violins, viols, keyboards and theorbo) played by the Oxford-based ensemble Charivari Agréable Simfonie. It is not difficult to sense in the spirit of these sorrowful texts the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, during which Germany experienced not only savagery but also disease. Basso continuo, concertato techniques and monody, imported from Italy provided 17th-century composers such as Kindermann, who is well represented here, with a wealth of means by which to express the Lutheran faith. A single exception is afforded by a Tenebrae Lesson from a set which Belgian Catholic composer Fiocco composed in 1733. He is, furthermore, the only 18th-century composer to feature here. The best-known piece in this affecting programme is Johann Christoph Bach’s lament ’Ach, dass ich Wassers g’nug hätte’. Full of bold and heart-rending harmonies by the most expressively gifted of J.S.Bach’s forebears, it never fails to touch my innermost sensibilities. Del Pozo discloses many subtle nuances in his singing, while the instrumental playing - the gamba part is wonderfully rich - is full of rhetorical gesture, imaginative and sonorous. This is, for me at least, the highpoint in a fascinating, emotionally satisfying programme, several of whose songs were quite new to me. A rewarding release."

Nicholas Anderson

BBC Music Magazine - June 2000

"Weeping, wailing and gnashing of chromatic teeth from J.C. Bach’s ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers’ sung by Rodrigo del Pozo with Charivari Agréable Simfonie. That’s new this month from Signum on a CD called ‘Sacred Songs of Sorrow’ … you’ll be shedding tears by the end of it; there are also some things of great beauty hidden away here."

Andrew McGregor

BBC 3 CD Radio Review

"An imaginative programme of sacred settings with particularly colourful use of viols in the accompaniments … The Charivari Agréable group from Oxford plays all this music with considerable intensity and expressive warmth, with Rodrigo del pozo, a high tenor (high enough to pop up quite often well into treble regions), who is soft in timbre, clear in diction and both unassuming and eloquent in manner. The result is a disc decidedly out of the ordinary."

Stanley Sadie

Gramophone - May 2000

Best CD of the Year 2000

"A lot of music by great composers has come my way in the first months of International Record Review’s existence – Tallis, Byrd and William Lawes among the English, Dufay, Josquin and Lassus among the continentals – and some of it in more than competent performances. But at the risk of sounding precious (heavens, perhaps even elitist!), I’m going to plump for a disc devoted to a bunch of virtually unknown Germans of the mid-seventeenth century. In spite of its rather forbidding title, ’Sacred Songs of Sorrow’, performed by Charivari Agreable Simfonie with the Chilean-born tenor as their sensitive and mellifluous soloist, was a revelation that I would like to share with as many people as possible. The music itself is surprisingly varied; Baroque composers such as Erasmus Kindermann, Christian Geist and Bach’s cousin (once removed), Johann Christoph, were open to many different stylistic winds. What is consistent here is a kind of impassioned intimacy that I found – and still find on re-hearing – very attractive indeed, and not in the least glum."